[SUCCESS] Old Hack, New Tricks II - Upgrading My GA-Z77X-UP5 TH System to Catalina

[sickmedia]

How do I know if my iGPU is actually working?

For me, I think the easiest way is to download XRG.

XRG

gauchosoft.com

It's a great little hardware monitor. If you open it and it has two GPUs listed, then you know it's working. There's other apps like Videoproc to see if you have hardware acceleration enabled for h.264 encoding. if you don't edit video, then I wouldn't worry about that part though.

 

[hitINdaGs]

It's a great little hardware monitor. If you open it and it has two GPUs listed, then you know it's working. There's other apps like Videoproc to see if you have hardware acceleration enabled for h.264 encoding. if you don't edit video, then I wouldn't worry about that part though.

I do edit video. I finally managed to put my iGPU in headless mode - at least I hope that this is what I did Since I am still on an old CPU I keep using the iMac14,2 SMBIOS and things seem to work well on that part. iGPU does not show in System Information but it actually does pop up in iStats. I checked Videoproc and it shows that h.264 is accelerated but HEVC is not. VideoProc pics my iGPU (Intel HD 4000), whereas Premiere seems to use my dGPU to encode h.264. Not sure what to do about that.

My biggest concern is a lag/freeze thingy that happens to my mouse. It cyclically freezes every 4 seconds for a short moment. USB doesn't seem to be the issue as it also happens on a Bluetooth mouse. However, I find that things get worse (longer freezes) when I connect my 4k display over HDMI. On DP the freezes would be VERY short, however still annoying. When I connect a 2k display over HDMI instead, using the same cable, the problem is gone. Seems to be 4k related.

 

[sickmedia]

I do edit video. I finally managed to put my iGPU in headless mode - at least I hope that this is what I did Since I am still on an old CPU I keep using the iMac14,2 SMBIOS and things seem to work well on that part. iGPU does not show in System Information but it actually does pop up in iStats. I checked Videoproc and it shows that h.264 is accelerated but HEVC is not. VideoProc pics my iGPU (Intel HD 4000), whereas Premiere seems to use my dGPU to encode h.264. Not sure what to do about that.

---I think that's all normal. The 3770k chip doesn't support accelerated HEVC.
Try FCP X if you haven't, it uses both gpus pretty much to 99% on most things. Premiere, in my tests, does seem to use the GPUs less.

My biggest concern is a lag/freeze thingy that happens to my mouse. It cyclically freezes every 4 seconds for a short moment. USB doesn't seem to be the issue as it also happens on a Bluetooth mouse. However, I find that things get worse (longer freezes) when I connect my 4k display over HDMI. On DP the freezes would be VERY short, however still annoying. When I connect a 2k display over HDMI instead, using the same cable, the problem is gone. Seems to be 4k related.

I had a similar problem, but I think it was due to my wireless usb port being too close to my wifi/bluetooth card. i just moved the usb and the antennas and then a few reboots and it now seems to be fixed (?)

 

[hitINdaGs]

I had a similar problem, but I think it was due to my wireless usb port being too close to my wifi/bluetooth card. i just moved the usb and the antennas and then a few reboots and it now seems to be fixed (?)

I don't think it concerns the input devices or USB at all since the problem gets worse when switching to HDMI and disappears when I use a 2K monitor instead. Must be graphic related.

 

[hitINdaGs]

---I think that's all normal. The 3770k chip doesn't support accelerated HEVC.
Try FCP X if you haven't, it uses both gpus pretty much to 99% on most things. Premiere, in my tests, does seem to use the GPUs less.

To whom it may concern: I deactivated the iGPU, switched to iMacPro1,1 and now HEVC is supported in VideoProc. Not sure which measure actually did the trick. But like you said, FCP and PP probably do it anyways. Didn't test it yet, though. Does it even make any sense to activate the iGPU at all? It doesn't output 4K so it's pretty useless for video output. It might be possible that it slows things down more than it actually helps.

 

[mickelsn]

To whom it may concern: I deactivated the iGPU, switched to iMacPro1,1 and now HEVC is supported in VideoProc. Not sure which measure actually did the trick. But like you said, FCP and PP probably do it anyways. Didn't test it yet, though. Does it even make any sense to activate the iGPU at all? It doesn't output 4K so it's pretty useless for video output. It might be possible that it slows things down more than it actually helps.

I have the iGPU activated in my system because you need it to do things like AirPlay screen sharing from your Mac to another device.

 

[hitINdaGs]

I have the iGPU activated in my system because you need it to do things like AirPlay screen sharing from your Mac to another device.

I never use screen sharing but Sidecar would be nice. However, both might even work on iMacPro1,1 because it‘s designed to use a dGPU for all tasks. When using a much newer dGPU like I do, deactivate the iGPU because on most SMBIOS settings, it will be prioritized for tasks that should be handled by the much better dGPU. I can test screen sharing on my setup if anybody is curious to know.

 

[sickmedia]

To whom it may concern: I deactivated the iGPU, switched to iMacPro1,1 and now HEVC is supported in VideoProc. Not sure which measure actually did the trick. But like you said, FCP and PP probably do it anyways. Didn't test it yet, though. Does it even make any sense to activate the iGPU at all? It doesn't output 4K so it's pretty useless for video output. It might be possible that it slows things down more than it actually helps.

Hmmm, You've inspired me. I may switch to the ImacPro1,1 sys def to see if there's any performance gains in PP or FCP X over the 13,2 def i've been using. My thinking in keeping 13,2 was that I essentially get two GPU's-- one for free. That being the iGpu.

Side note, i've been wanting to slam my old gtx 670 down next to my rx 580 to see if i can wring any more performance out of this aging puppy system. maybe triple GPU?

Hackintosh is all about experimentation, right?

 

[hitINdaGs]

Side note, i've been wanting to slam my old gtx 670 down next to my rx 580 to see if i can wring any more performance out of this aging puppy system. maybe triple GPU?

Switching away from my old GTX 680 made a huge difference. Using Metal in PP, FCP works much better. In Catalina openGL and CUDA is deprecated so you will run into more and more trouble anyways. So yes, you won't regret switching away from NVIDIA

Regarding the iGPU - I haven't thoroughly checked the difference. However, the Intel HD 4000 is so weak - I wouldn't be surprised to see that it doesn't help at all. What would definitely help is using iGPU for display performance. However, if you run a 4k monitor like me, it won't work.

edit: I read somewhere that the rx580 is not an easy hack but maybe that's just concerning the XFX version:

[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

CaseySJ's Coffee Lake in Phanteks Evolv X ATX Case: Gigabyte Designare Z390 - i7-9700K - UHD 630 - AMD RX 580 (Please do not quote this build guide in its entirely. Post a link instead.) (See this post for how to refer to a Guide or Mini-Guide.) URGENT: Please avoid Clover 5123 and newer for...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[hitINdaGs]

I just realised that my system is STILL USING the iGPU for encoding, despite the iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS. I want to force encoding to my dGPU, not sure how to go about it yet. I will look into this and post my findings. As of now I can encode HEVC and h.264 in HD with about 195fps using VideoProc or AME.